It’s a tale of two markets.
Asked on the Switzer Show this week for her best idea coming out of reporting season, Bell Direct’s Grady Wulff did not name a stock straight away. Instead, she described a market that has split in two.
“The economy, it’s a tale of two speeds,” she said. “We’ve got resources booming. We’ve got consumer-facing stocks really under pressure, and those tech high-growth stocks really under pressure with higher for longer interest rates.”
So what’s left? Wulff says we need to look at the part of the market that has to keep spending regardless.
“What I’m looking at is the capex-exposed industrial stocks. And what I mean is those where they need to be spending. We’ve got higher business spending than a long time right now. And it’s only accelerating as we get into this AI boom that we’re seeing.”
Then the argument for why that is a route in rather than a consolation prize: “A lot of people think they’ve missed the AI tech stock buy-in. And so why not buy into the infrastructure and the resources around it?”
Her picks
GenusPlus Group, which trades under the code GNP, designs, builds and maintains power and communications infrastructure. It reports in three segments: Infrastructure, Services, and Energy and Engineering.
“You can’t have AI without any of these things,” Wulff said. She described GenusPlus as putting in the groundwork an AI build needs. “So you need communication. You need all the essential power. Everything that you need for AI, this company is able to do.”
Peter Switzer put the obvious label on it and she took it. “So it’s like the picks and shovels play, isn’t it?” “Yeah, it kind of is.”
GenusPlus reported its full-year result on 25 August. Revenue for the 12 months to 30 June 2026 was $1.281 billion, up 70.5%. Normalised EBITDA was $100.8 million, up 49.6%, which beat the top of a guidance range the company had already upgraded twice during the year. Net profit after tax was $49.0 million, up 38.5%. Dividends rose 55.6% to 5.6 cents a share.
Wulff quoted the forward look from the results: “They’ve got $2.2 billion in an order book right now, $3.6 billion in the tender pipeline. So that shows there’s growth in earnings runway there.”
Wulff put a share price on it: “We’re targeting a share price of $12.80.” That is Bell Direct’s own figure rather than a consensus. GenusPlus closed at $9.03 on 22 September, in a 52-week range of $5.60 to $11.35, so $12.80 sits about 42% above the current price and about 13% above the highest the stock has traded in a year.
“A company like this isn’t going to go anywhere when AI is going gangbusters,” Wulff said.
The offshore version of the same idea
Wulff’s argument is a domestic one. The equivalent question for investors who want the theme without picking a single ASX contractor is who is buying the global businesses attached to it.
One of the managers Australian investors can access for that is WCM Investment Management, a California-based global equity specialist founded in 1976 and majority-owned by its employees. Associate Global Partners*, which distributes WCM’s strategies here, puts the firm’s funds under management at more than A$197.7 billion as at 30 June 2026.
WCM’s Quality Global Growth strategy selects on two tests rather than on sector exposure: whether a company’s competitive moat is widening rather than merely wide, and whether its corporate culture is strong enough to keep widening it.
There are three ways to access it. ASX: WQG is WCM Global Growth Limited, a listed investment company. ASX: WCMQ is the WCM Quality Global Growth Fund, an active ETF. There is also an unlisted managed fund. Fees differ between them: WCMQ charges a 1.25% management fee plus a 0.10% administration fee, while WQG charges the same 1.25% and 0.10% plus a 10% performance fee on outperformance above the benchmark after the management fee, subject to a high-water mark and capped at 0.75% of closing market value a year.
More detail on the strategy is at associateglobal.com/funds/wcmqgg.
*Associate Global Partners is a Switzer Daily commercial partner. References to specific securities in this article are for illustrative purposes only and are not a recommendation to buy, hold or sell. The WCM information above has been prepared by AGP Investment Management Limited (ABN 26 123 611 978, AFSL 312247) and is general information only. It does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. Before investing, read the relevant Product Disclosure Statement and Target Market Determination, available at go.associateglobal.com/pds/agp-wcmq and go.associateglobal.com/tmd/agp-wcmq, and obtain advice from a licensed financial adviser. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Price and index data as at 22 September 2026 unless otherwise stated.
